It is known to secure a motor vehicle fender to the structure of the vehicle via a support, sometimes referred to as a fender support, which support is itself secured to the rigid structure of the vehicle, itself referred to as the blank body.
Known supports can be fasteners having additional functions such as positioning the fender, the ability to withstand expansion, fusibility in the event of an impact in order to preserve the fender, or indeed backing for the fender so as to increase its dent resistance.
An example of a fender support provided in the state of the art is described in document EP 0 839 704. On its outside face that is to receive a fender, that support carries an array of ribs that matches the inside shape of the fender.
However, those prior art supports are inadequate when it comes to impacts against the heads of pedestrians.
Such impacts are presently defined by the “Pedestrian” working group (WG 17) of the European Enhanced Vehicle Safety Committee and by the EuroNCAP Procedure. Such impacts are downwardly directed with varying angles between the direction of the impact and the ground. The impactor that models a pedestrian's head is spherical in shape and of mass lying in the range 2.5 kilograms (kg) to 4.7 kg.
More generally, present and future definitions of pedestrian head impacts use criteria that can vary as a function of location and period. The person skilled in the art can easily adapt to the appropriate criteria when implementing the present invention.
The theoretical impact is that of a head of a pedestrian knocked over by a vehicle and lying on the front of the vehicle. If the impact of the head lies in the middle region of the hood, then indentation of the hood can suffice to absorb enough energy to preserve the pedestrian's head, providing other difficulties specific to hood impacts are properly handled, which difficulties lie outside the ambit of the present description. In contrast, if the corresponding impact zone coincides with the top edge of a fender, there is a risk that the intrinsic stiffness of the fender rim, plus that of the hood rim which is adjacent to the fender rim, will reduce the amount of energy that is absorbed and will lead to the pedestrian's head being decelerated too quickly.